Hoping to turn the B'nai Mitzvah experience from a graduation ceremony to a true entry point to Jewish life, two local congregations are participating in a national pilot project organized by the Reform movement while others are experimenting with their own strategies.

Based on Rabbi Yehoshua Duskis’ background, you might reasonably have predicted that he would become a religious leader. But Duskis, a new rabbi at Elkins Park’s Etz Chaim Center for Jewish Studies, says becoming a religious leader was far from inevitable.